Interview (Video): Sarah Polley

The writer-director of Women Talking along with cast members discuss the powerful new film.

A movie everyone should put on their to watch list when it hits theaters in December is Women Talking.

Plot summary: Do nothing. Stay and fight. Or leave. In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith.

After a recent New York screening of the movie, here is a Q&A featuring writer-director Sarah Polley, cast members Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, & Liv McNeil, and producer Dede Gardner with NYFF Executive Director, Eugene Hernandez.

I actually attended a screening of the movie in Chicago a few weeks back and moderated a Q&A with Polley and the film’s cinemtographer Luc Montpellier.

Given my background in theological studies, I asked Polley about the power structure within the religious community and whether she had approached the story as indictment of oppressive patriarchal systems. She acknowledged that was part of what drew her to the material, but as much or more it was the empowerment of the matriarchal connection the women in the community forged that inspired her.

Polley and Montpelier have worked together on several film projects, so I noted how the movie never shows the faces of the men in the religious community. Was that an intentional choice? Polley said it was not something they noticed until they got into post-production and became a visual element they decided to feature in the final film.

We had an extensive conversation both before the public Q&A, then during the session. Polley is such an impressive filmmaker and Women Talking is a stellar example of her cinematic instincts. The film is a thoughtful drama, tragic in its roots, but ultimately a moving testament to personal communication and the female empowerment.

Here is a trailer for Women Talking:

Here is the movie’s website.

Women Talking will have a limited theatrical release beginning December 2nd. Again, I strongly recommend you watch this moving drama.